Researchers at Northwestern University found no connection between time spent on social-networking sites and academic performance. The study, the results of which appear in the latest issue of Information, Communication & Society, included responses from approximately 1,000 first-year students at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Throughout the course, a further paring down of the Hemingway/Stein school of minimalism will be emphasized, limiting the superfluous use of nouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, conjunctions, gerunds, and other literary pitfalls.

Is There Social Capital in a Social Network Site?: Facebook Use and College Students' Life Satisfaction, Trust, and Participation1 Sebastián Valenzuela 1 Namsu Park 1 Kerk F. Kee 1 1 University of Texas at Austin 1 Earlier versions of this study were presented at the 2008 International Symposium on Online Journalism and the 2008 APSA Preconference on Political Communication. For intellectual and financial support on this research, we thank Sharon Strover. Helpful comments at various stages were provided by Jeff Gulati and Talia Stroud. Corresponding author: Sebastián Valenzuela [sebastianvalenzuela@mail.utexas.edu]

ABSTRACT This study examines if Facebook, one of the most popular social network sites among college students in the U.S., is related to attitudes and behaviors that enhance individuals' social capital. Using data from a random web survey of college students across Texas (n = 2,603), we find positive relationships between intensity of Facebook use and students' life satisfaction, social trust, civic engagement, and political participation. While these findings should ease the concerns of those who fear that Facebook has mostly negative effects on young adults, the positive and significant associations between Facebook variables and social capital were small, suggesting that online social networks are not the most effective solution for youth disengagement from civic duty and democracy.

Today's teens are still more interested in their friends than their lessons. They're still resistant to power and authority at variable levels. They still gossip, bully, flirt, joke around, and hang out. The underlying dynamics are fairly consistent. That said, technology is inflecting these practices in unique ways. And my goal here today is to talk about these inflection points.

Teens who use MySpace can't communicate with those on Facebook and vice-versa. So if you don't participate, you're written out of the story. This means that divisions are re-inforced. Forget all of the rhetoric about how the Internet is the great equalizer - it's the great reproducer of inequality.

For all of the attention paid to "digital natives" it's important to realize that most teens are engaging with social media without any deep understanding of the underlying dynamics or structure. Just because they understand how to use the technology doesn't mean that they understand the information ecology that surrounds it. Most teens don't have the scaffolding for thinking about their information practices.